I've got to say, I deal with this quite frequently. Often times CEO's expect immediate results in even the most challenging/congested markets. I know, as I deal with it on a daily basis. Being overeager will not only affect your progress in the long run (mainly due to the fact that the person doing SEO for you will just get angry and annoyed), but it will also affect the opinion of the non-educated higher-ups, which could result negatively and lead to the ol’ abandon the SEO ship.

I make it a point to educate all prospective clients using examples of other sites that I’ve worked with. Setting realistic expectations over time is key. I know personally, as a friend of mine was hired to work with a real estate firm, who not 2 weeks later, was given the boot because “progress was not made”. Ridiculous considering the market, but again, you need to set realistic expectations and make sure that your employer understands them to the fullest extent. Every niche is different, so time will always vary.

*sigh* I would just like to express my disdain for PageRank. I work with a site that is strictly a health site that focuses on educating the public about vision disorders, so I've been searching for vision-related sites for links. Anyway, I get a response that reads: "why on earth would anyone trade links with a PR2 site?"

You gotta love it. I was thinking about responding to him with examples of how PR doesn't dictate a sites overall value (www.punknews.org = PR6 / a news story that's 2 days old *1500+ comments* www.punknews.org/article/29960 = PR9), but decided to move on. And so it goes.

I feel your pain McHugh as I'm in almost the exact same situation. What boggles my mind is that I'm being paid for my SEO skills, then when I make the suggestion, it get swept under the rug... August 06, 2008

I'm in the exact same boat. I'm also ready to launch this fairly large scale initiative for our company that took me weeks to put together. It took the marketing guy 1 hour to "look it over and make the appropriate changes", changes that I feel could impact my project in a negative way. June 18, 2008

"Were there not advertisements for text-link-ads on this site a while back?"

I believe so, which begs the question; If a site/blog is being sponsored by so-called “evil link brokers” such as TLA (I’m not saying they’re evil, but I assume they’d be considered as such), will those sites be penalized in the near future? Does G consider shady sponsors to be guilt by association? How far does guilt by association extend?